Bhubaneswar: Bhubaneswar police on Monday arrested a 66 year old man for allegedly marrying fourteen women across the country in a span of 48 years and swindling crores from them.
The officials were stunned to stumble upon the deceptive ploys of the Ramesh Chandra Swain, a native of the Patkura police station area of Kendrapara district.
As per reports, the accused has swindled crores of rupees from the unsuspecting and economically sound victims before fleeing.
The arrested man has, however, denied the charges.
His victims included among others doctors, police officers, and lawyers. Though he claimed to have duped 14 women, sources suggest that there is every possibility that he might have ensnared many more.
The accused had married for the first time in 1982 and took a second wife in 2002. He fathered five children from these two marriages, Bhubaneswar Deputy Commissioner of Police Umashankar Dash said. Between 2002 and 2020, he befriended other women through matrimonial websites and married them without knowledge of the other wives, Mr Dash said.
The man was staying in the Odisha capital with his last wife, who was a school teacher in Delhi. She, somehow, came to know of his earlier marriages and lodged a complaint with the police.
He was arrested from his rented accommodation. On the modus operandi of the accused, the DCP said he used to target middle-aged single women, mostly divorcees who sought companionship on matrimonal websites. Later he acquires their money before abandoning them.
He used to identify himself as a doctor and married lawyers, physicians and highly-educated women. A woman working in a para-military force was also among her victims, Mr Dash said.
He is alleged to have duped women in seven states including Delhi, Punjab, Assam, Jharkhand and Odisha. His first two wives were from Odisha.
The DCP said the matter came to the fore when the school teacher had lodged a complaint with the Mahila police in July last year claiming that the accused married her in New Delhi in 2018 and took her to Bhubaneswar.
She came to know about his multiple marriages and the police arrested him on the basis of her complaint. Police seized 11 ATM cards, four Aadhaar cards and other documents from his possession.
He was earlier arrested twice for cheating unemployed youths and loan fraud in Hyderabad and Ernakulam, police said.